While there is still some benefit of traditional marketing, many small businesses find the costs can be prohibitive. Fortunately, there are effective alternatives and with the right SEO strategies, small businesses can keep costs relatively low and stay competitive. SEO or search engine optimization involves improving visibility on the major search engines such as Google or Bing. Improving SEO can be a relatively inexpensive tactic for small businesses, improving web traffic and driving more potential customers to the business.
The SEO Basics
In its simplest form, SEO is a technique to organically improve a website’s online visibility. The ultimate goal is to have the website appear near the top of the first page of the search engine results. With a well executed SEO strategy, it can be possible to increase website traffic without needing to pay for online advertising. There are a number of components that contribute to SEO including the content of the web pages, targeting keywords and backlinks.
Every business owner should recognize the key benefits of organic traffic. To develop a better understanding of SEO, there are some terms that you need to know.
| Concept | Definition | Key Importance |
|---|---|---|
| SERP | The Search Engine Results Page is the organic search results for your SEO efforts. When a search query is entered, the search engine generates the most relevant pages. | Being visible on the first page of results significantly impacts traffic and visibility. |
| Keyword Ranking | The position of your web page in search results for a specific keyword. Higher rankings (especially on the first page) lead to more visitors and traffic. | Achieving top positions is crucial for driving traffic and increasing website visibility. |
| Backlinks | Links to your website from other sites. Reputable backlinks improve keyword rankings and website authority. Poor-quality backlinks can harm rankings. | Quality over quantity is key; avoid spammy links and focus on earning backlinks from reputable sources. |
| Local SEO | Optimizing your website to promote local services and attract in-person traffic. Helps businesses rank in local searches for specific areas. | Essential for businesses targeting customers in a specific geographic area. |
| Technical SEO | Ensures that search engines can crawl and index your website. Focuses on backend elements like architecture and coding. | Improves the site’s ability to be ranked by search engines by ensuring proper indexing and structure. |
| Site Speed | Refers to how long it takes for website pages to load. Fast-loading sites provide a better user experience and rank higher. | Critical for both user experience and search engine ranking; slow sites often suffer in SERPs. |
| Mobile Optimization | Ensures websites are user-friendly on mobile devices, scaling appropriately for screens of all sizes. | Vital for engaging mobile users and maintaining a positive user experience, as mobile internet use continues to rise. |
Small Business SEO Strategies for Beginners
If you’re new to SEO, there are some strategies that are simple to implement and can help to boost your website’s visibility.
Don’t Limit Yourself to Google
Google is the largest search engine, with approximately 80% of the market share, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t get some value from the other search engines. Depending on your target audience, you may find other sites can be just as valuable. You don’t have to limit yourself to Google and the major search engines, as Amazon, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit and other platforms have their own SEO strategies that can boost your brand visibility.
Think Medium Term
SEO is an effective way to market your business, but you can’t expect instant results. If you’re new to building your SEO, it can take months to see results, particularly if your website is brand new. So, you need to think in the medium term, rather than focusing on right now. If you offer seasonal products and it is now March, you need to think about summer and fall, rather than concentrating on spring.
Research Keywords
Keyword research is a fundamental aspect of SEO, and you will need to plan your website content with specific keywords for your business. If you’re unsure what keywords you should target, there are plenty of keyword research tools that can help you.
Remember that if your content doesn’t target a specific keyword, it is not likely to help you to show up in the first page of the SERPs. Keyword research is crucial to know what people are searching for that fits your business’s products or services.
Think About Website Visitors
While keywords are important, you need to remember that humans will be reading your web pages, so the content needs to be relevant and engaging. Good content that seamlessly incorporates your targeted keywords will encourage people to remain in your site, interacting with more content and reading more pages.
Although it may be tempting to try and put as many keywords as possible into your content, this is very counterproductive. Human readers will recognize that the content is not designed for them and will click away, which will negatively impact your SERPs.
Maximize Local Search
As a small business, you could use local search to your advantage. Statistics show that there is massive potential in this niche, with almost half of Google searches having local intent. If you offer services or products in your geographical area, you could have masses of potential customers within five miles of your location.
Just be sure to claim your business page on Google. This will not only give your business legitimacy, but it will help you to appear in Google Maps and “near me” searches. Local searches can be incremental traffic and a way to help diversify your SEO strategy.
Leverage Google Search Console
If you haven’t already set up your Google Search Console account, you need to do this immediately. GSC is a vital tool for SEO giving you free access to a wealth of data including how many impressions your page gets on Google, what keywords people are searching and how many clicks your pages generate organically.
You can then use GSC to optimize your business’s SEO. You can use the data to see which keywords will help you to attract the most site visitors. Look at the “coverage” report to see any indexing issues and you can use the “performance” reports to enhance your descriptions and meta titles to improve your click throughs.
Additionally, be sure to set up Google Analytics to track visitor data and if you have a physical business location, be sure to create a Google My Business account. This is crucial for positive local SEO as you will show up on Google Maps.
Regularly Post Content
There’s good reason why the term “content is king” has become so popular over the past few years. Every page on your website provides not only more opportunities to target more keywords, but also to engage with your target audience. A small website with just a few pages is only likely to show up organically in the SERPs for a relatively small number of keywords. Additionally, visitors to your website are unlikely to linger long, as there is not much for them to read and learn.
Try posting at least one piece of content every week (or at the very least, every month). This will not only increase how often Google can show your website, but it could encourage return visitors who start to view your website as an authority in your niche. This will build brand trust and strengthen your reputation.
Use Simple URLs
When the “spider bots” from Google crawl your website, they need to see understandable information. So, you need to take every opportunity to communicate the subject of your content with Google. This means keeping your URLs short and simple. Google doesn’t tend to like ranking long alpha numeric sequence URLs on the first page of the SERPs. Try using targeted keywords on all your new links, which will not only ensure that they look neat, but it will clarify to both your readers and Google what the page is all about.
Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Your keywords are important but you can have too much of a good thing. In the early 2000s, it was quite common for digital marketers to pack website content with keywords to try to rank higher in the SERPs.This worked for a short time until Google spotted the trend and started to de-rank these keyword stuffed pages.
Unfortunately, there are still some people around who believe that you can never have too many keywords, but this can be very detrimental to your website ranking. A good rule of thumb is to limit your keywords to 1% of the text. This should allow you to include your focus keyword in the title, opening paragraph and once or twice more in the text.
Use Evergreen Content
Google doesn’t like showing out of date content, so you want to make sure that your content is evergreen with a long shelf life. Ideally, your content should be high quality and provide value for your readers, as well as being attractive to the Google bots.
As a business owner on a budget you may be tempted to just duplicate AI content, but this can lack useful information, which will compromise your SERPs. Try to focus your website content on ideas, opinions and information that will stay fresh and continue to appeal to readers. If you don’t think the content is useful, chances are it won’t rank in the search engines.
Use Internal Links
Most websites lack internal links, but this is a massive SEO mistake. Internal links not only make your website more user friendly, but it is more appealing to the Google search algorithm. Adding more internal links encourages visitors to remain on your website (and reduces your bounce rate – a key metric search engines use in their algorithms). It also shows Google (and other search engines) the breadth of content you have on your site which will help you rank for key topics you cover.
Enable Comments
Google rewards good customer service, so make sure that you demonstrate this by enabling the comments section on your blog. Try to respond to each comment which will help you to connect with potential customers and show Google you understand the importance of solid customer service.
Encourage Reviews
The number of reviews your business has can directly influence your SERPs and if you want to show up on Google Maps, you should try to encourage and respond to reviews. To start, you can ask clients to leave a Google review and you could offer a small incentive, such as a discount coupon or freebie to encourage them.
When someone does leave a review, keep your replies professional, thanking them for positive reviews and addressing any issues for any negative reviews.
Optimize Metadata
In simple terms, metadata is the SEO information showing up in the search engine. If you look at the top ranking posts for your target keywords, you can study their meta titles and descriptions for inspiration. The goal of your metadata is to encourage search engine users to click on your link rather than continuing to scroll.
You can get an idea of how effective your metadata is by checking your click through rate (CTR) in Google Search Console. You are aiming for a CTR of 3% or higher, and bear in mind that the higher you rank, the more your CTR will increase.
Measure and Track Your SEO Performance
As we touched on earlier, it can take some time for SEO changes to alter your website traffic and ranking, but SEO rankings do not remain static. As new content is continually published, the search engines will continue to rank pages. So, it is important that you measure and track your SEO performance, so you can adjust your strategies. This will help you to keep your website performing on target and keep you ahead of the competition.
FAQs
Is Local SEO Important?
If you have a small business, local SEO should be a major focus for you, particularly if you have a brick and mortar location. It will make it easier to find your business and you should see an increase in foot traffic along with website traffic.
Is SEO Worth it?
These days, the internet and social media is a crucial part of any business, but as a small business owner, SEO is incredibly valuable. It is relatively inexpensive, yet it makes your website easy to use and your business easier to find on the internet.
If you don’t have unlimited funds to promote your business, SEO can be a great way to bring potential customers to your business and start to develop relationships that could provide repeat business for years to come.
What SEO Tools Should I Use?
There are numerous free and paid SEO tools, particularly for tracking and measuring your SEO performance. However, Google does offer some great free tools that can be helpful for small businesses working with a limited budget. These include Google Search Console, Google Analytics and Google My Business.
What On Page Elements Need to Be Optimized for SEO?
There are a number of on page elements that you should optimize including your page titles (title tags,) headers (body tags,) meta descriptions, page URLs, alt text and your page content. In short, you need to keep your targeted keywords in mind as you’re creating every piece of content for your site. Just be sure to avoid keyword stuffing that can hurt your site rankings.
Can I Do SEO for My Small Business Myself?
Sure, you can learn the basics of SEO and develop your own SEO strategies using the information in this article and other online resources. But, this will involve some trial and error, and you are likely to make some mistakes that may delay your progress.
If you are looking for effective and proven results, you may want to consider speaking to a digital agency that can help you to develop an SEO strategy for your small business.
Is SEO Important for Your Business?
Having a website and seeing increasing traffic numbers can be a great way to boost your business and SEO provides a cost effective option. While you can pay for advertising for quicker results, this can significantly drive up your marketing costs, which may be prohibitive for many small businesses.
Although SEO can take time, it can help you to generate lots of organic, free website traffic. If you can put in consistent effort and focus on producing high quality content, you should be able to see results in a matter of months. You will need to be prepared to wait to see how your SEO strategies work, but you can monitor and adjust periodically. As you increase your organic website traffic, you will find it is worth the time and effort. You can increase your profits and reduce the amount you spend on advertising, so you can focus on using your available funds for things that will further grow your business.